Monday, July 02, 2012

I was compelled to buy these curly garlic tops, called scapes, at Farmers Market a week ago. So beautiful and strange! I put them in a water glass on the kitchen counter and they've continued to grow. I'm told that they're great in recipes but I can't bear to cut them, and before they straighten I must sit down and draw each one. Read about them here where there's a recipe for Garlic Hazelnut Pesto.

I've decided to be easier on myself and not obsess over posting on my blog this summer. I'll try for once a week but if I don't accomplish even that know that I'm more than okay and probably enjoying a quiet summer in my back yard.

Art Tip: Removing acrylic from hands

Use ordinary hand sanitizer to quickly remove acrylic paint and medium from your hands. The alcohol in the sanitizer dissolves the acrylic. Wipe well with a paper towel and then wash with soap and water.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.